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He could have thrown his arms around the man's legs and kissed his feet. He tried vainly to utter his acceptance; but the barkeeper had not waited and was already passing out the bottle. "But what did you do for grub?" the latter asked. "You don't look as if you could chop wood to keep yourself warm. You look terribly bad, friend." Morganson yearned towards the delayed bottle and gulped dryly.
In the instant of surprise, Morganson pulled the trigger on John Thompson too low, for the latter staggered and sat down suddenly on the sled. Morganson raised his aim and fired again. John Thompson sank down backward along the top of the loaded sled. Morganson turned his attention to Oleson.
Under the initiative of the leader, the team swung around in its tangled harness. Because of his crippled condition, Morganson could move only slowly. He saw the animals circling around on him and tried to retreat. He almost made it, but the big leader, with a savage lunge, sank its teeth into the calf of his leg. The flesh was slashed and torn, but Morganson managed to drag himself clear.
"According to my notion, it is not so good as a bunk, or a hammock slung in a tidy forecastle, but it's at your service, and Mrs. Morganson, I dare say, can lay an extra plate at table." With which gracious acceptance of Richard's proposition, Mr.
Wall told Peter that he feared Morganson would not succeed in obtaining many recruits, as the authorities in Canada at the head of the organization had not furnished the arms that were promised to their friends in Indiana and Ohio; that he was at that time there for the purpose of procuring arms for Illinois, and that he had been sent there to see Mr. Jacob Thomlinson and a Mr.
Morganson shyly poured the whisky into the glass, partly filling it. "Go on, make it a man's drink," the barkeeper encouraged. Morganson tilted the bottle and filled the glass to the brim. He drank the liquor slowly, pleasuring in the fire of it that bit his tongue, sank hotly down his throat, and with warm, gentle caresses permeated his stomach. "Scurvy, eh?" the barkeeper asked.
The giant was grotesquely curving and twisting and running at top speed along the trail, the tail of his parka flapping smartly behind. Morganson trained his rifle on the man and with a swaying action followed his erratic flight. Morganson's finger was getting numb. He could scarcely feel the trigger. "God help me," he breathed a prayer aloud, and pulled the trigger.
At last it sat down, pointed its nose upward, and began to howl. Soon all the team was howling. Now that he was down, Morganson was no longer afraid. He had a vision of himself being found dead in the snow, and for a while he wept in self-pity. But he was not afraid. The struggle had gone out of him. When he tried to open his eyes he found that the wet tears had frozen them shut.
The men and dogs were silhouetted sharply against the white of the landscape. They had the seeming of two dimension, cardboard figures that worked mechanically. Morganson rested his cocked rifle in the notch in the tree. He became abruptly aware that his fingers were cold, and discovered that his right hand was bare. He did not know that he had taken off the mitten. He slipped it on again hastily.
"Got to make Selkirk to-morrow," said he of the black whiskers. "On Christmas Day!" the barkeeper cried. "The better the day the better the deed," the other laughed. As the three men passed out of the door it came dimly to Morganson that it was Christmas Eve. That was the date. That was what he had come to Minto for.
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